The ‘absorbent mind’ welcomes everything, puts its hope in everything, accepts poverty equally with wealth, adopts any religion and the prejudices and habits of its countrymen, incarnating all in itself. This is the child!

Let us treat them [children], therefore, with all the kindness which we would wish to help to develop in them.

The child is much more spiritually elevated than is usually supposed. He often suffers, not from too much work, but from work that is unworthy of him.

The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the newborn infant or the older child, is to recognize the human personality of the young being and respect it.

Knowing what we must do is neither fundamental nor difficult, but to comprehend which presumptions and vain prejudices we must rid ourselves of in order to be able to educate our children is most difficult.

The development of the child during the first three years after birth is unequaled in intensity and importance by any period that precedes or follows in the whole life of the child.

To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely.